Inquistive
by Ephemeral Everlast
Summary: If this was what her imagination came up with, indifferent creatures who wanted her head, her confusion, her fear, then she was better off waking up. That is, if it was all indeed a nightmare. It was better not to be curious. Dark-themed, Alice-centered.


_Previously reworked from the short poem, "Inquisitive" in which a grimer version of the Disney "Alice in Wonderland" is worked through. Dark-themed, rather graphic in nature, filled with what could very well be the horror of Wonderland._

_No possession of rabbit-holes and un-Birthday cakes._

* * *

"_If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"_

This was the world of her imagination, a place filled with everything that was impossible in the world of her studies and duties of her young life. The flowers would speak with her and talk with her all day about everything that ran through her mind. Animals would also be able to talk, in voices that would have made her laugh herself to tears, and sometimes, they would throw massive tea-parties, to every occasion they could come up with, including un-Birthdays among other things.

Then perhaps this wasn't her imagination, as this was the exact opposite of what she wanted. She didn't understand; in a world of her own devising, from a dream to the inner-most corners of her heart, wasn't everything supposed to go her way?

The flowers wanted her out of the garden, as she was not a flower. Of course she wasn't, but weren't they supposed to accept her and talk with her, and once more, sing little tunes that she could dance to? They sneered and closed their buds, petals forming a barricade between her and the merry time she had planned for quite some time. Had she attempted to touch one of them, to get them to listen to her, she found her fingertips pricked with thorns, and some of the petals even oozed black poison, something that made her feel faint if she ventured too close.

The animals that spoke only confused her; the Cheshire Cat with the most peculiar violet-striped coat would disappear, leaving only a fanged smile in his wake, fangs that looked almost hungry, thirsting for the mischief of playing with his prey. Maybe he thought her a mouse then, which would make sense, for in the waking world, she was a young girl; here, she might very well have been a mouse. He left her head spinning, and he reappeared in front of her, only to float and turn himself on an axis, upside down, sideways, and then to the tree branch directly in front of her. He spoke, but he didn't seem to have any advice that would benefit her in the least. Also, he really didn't have a very good sense of direction at all.

As to more animals that talked, the rabbits here all wore clothes, waist-coats and charming buttons with watches that seemed to be ever-ticking, reminding the white rabbit that he was always late, always running out of time to a place that seemed just beyond his reach. There was the brown rabbit, the March Hare, that seemed to be very good friends with the Mad Hatter. Together, they gave her a huge cake, dripping with frosting that made her taste-buds sing, and her dream was renewed in full. Until she realized that she saw the cake moving of its own will, and she wondered just what sort of ingredients created this confection that claimed itself an un-Birthday cake. The tea was served in dainty china cups, tea that both the Hatter and Hare guzzled happily. She would have tried it had the liquid not swirled whenever she set it down, reminding her of a squirming insect that had been flipped to its back, revealing the muscled underbelly of something most foul.

There was a time when she found herself extremely lost, and all she could do was cry, creating a tidal wave with her tears that nearly drowned her. Her dress clung to her after that, and a fit of sniffling claimed her without mercy, irritating her sinuses and parched throat. This wasn't what she had wanted at all, the curious and curiouser aspect of her time here, in a world of her own. If this was her mind, perhaps she was quite mad, as mad as her tutor claimed she was.

And then fear came over her, gripping her chest like a hand lined with spines, compressing her lungs with every inhalation between her once petal-soft lips, now cracked and bitten by her own teeth. There was someone who wanted her dead, someone who wanted her dead for reasons that she couldn't fathom. She didn't mean to do anything and was just trying to find her way home, a place that was safe and made some sense despite her longing for uniqueness and something interesting. But the Red Queen was relentless and wanted her head severed from her body for no other reason than to do it, which terrified her to a state that she didn't know someone her age could feel.

She picked up the paintbrush, dipped it in the reddest of paint, and painted those roses until they resembled the scarlet that the queen so desperately craved, the giant oaf that she was. The cards watched her, their pinched faces marked with frown-marks, lines that reminded her of a fence that surrounded her home, a cross-hatch pattern that always made her dizzy to look upon for too long. How did it feel, she wanted to ask, to be a playing card?

It was then that she realized that this was a living nightmare, something that she wanted nothing more than to escape from. She wanted her parents more fiercely than she could have remembered, she wanted her tutor, that tree she was sitting under, her little white cat, her bedroom, the sweet normalcy that reminded her that she was safe, safe and not confused, tired and hunted for a crime that she didn't commit. Here, in Wonderland, she was haunted by too many frights, by branches that ripped at her dress and stockings, the puddles of mud and slime sinking into her shoes, in-between her toes. It was a terrible lesson, she realized, to be scared by the very thing that you wished for.

It was time to find a door then, the very rabbit-hole that she fell ever so gracefully down, some growing-cake, _something_ that would lead her to escape. She wasn't wanted here, in a grim fantasy she was quite mad to conjure up, and once more, think that she wanted above her own life. A dream wasn't worth getting one's head sliced off, golden-hair made into a wig for the queen's own head.

She ran, tripping and stumbling, hurling herself over branches and roots, past the twisting maze of the queen's boundaries, past the place where she sat at a stained table-cloth and attempted eating sweets that wriggled, past the branch where the Cheshire had confused her.

At least, she _had_ seen the branch when it hit her full-on in the face, hurling her backwards, the ground swallowing her whole. Maybe, she thought with the taste of blood in her mouth, her teeth feeling funny and loose, if she just closed her eyes, she would wake up. She would wake up, warm and safe in her bed, with her white cat and her parents' room within a few feet away. She just had to be dreaming.

She awoke to sunlight, to a radiance that white-washed the field in such an intense illumination that it nearly blinded her. A scream tore from her mouth, startling the dozing kitten in her lap into alertness. Her tutor had been walking to the tree with lemonade, and when she heard her charge scream, she set the glasses on the ground, running towards the trembling young girl.

"Only a dream," she managed to murmur, feeling her mouth for teeth, her lips for any swollen implication of a very hard tree-branch. Her tutor pat her shoulder, which resulted in a full-on embrace until she was calm once more. "It was only a peculiar dream."

Beneath the ground, Wonderland sighed. She wouldn't be returning any time soon, for Alice had learned the danger in being so curious.


End file.
